WB acquires rights to French B.O. success

Will Smith and James Lassiter will produce with Ken Stovitz. Pathe Intl. controlled rights to the film.

The original is a hicks-in-the-sticks tale about a post office manager who has a nice outpost in the South of France but ends up banished to a rainy town in northern France, where he finds the local patois unintelligible.

The Dany Boon-directed film grossed more than $190 million in France alone.

The pic will be developed by WB under the title “Welcome to the Sticks.”

“There are only 65 million people who live in France, and $191 million seemed to defy all logic. But when we saw the film, it’s obvious why it works,” Stovitz said. “We will probably place the character in a global corporation, and he literally gets sent to the sticks, but finds that rather than a backward place, it provides all that was missing in his life.”

Overbrook has been in overdrive, as Smith and Lassiter’s recent credits include the July 2 opener “Hancock,” the Jada Pinkett Smith-directed “The Human Contract,” the Sept. 19 opener “Lakeview Terrace,” Oct. 17 opener “The Secret Life of Bees” and the Gabriele Muccino-directed “Seven Pounds,” which stars Smith and opens Dec. 12.